One Man Dog drastically lowered expectations for a new
James Taylor album, and those expectations were almost met by
Walking Man, a more considered effort than its predecessor that managed to be just as trivial but even less interesting. As a result, it became the worst-selling album of
Taylor's career. Somehow, a songwriter who had seemed in 1970 to have as precise an idea of the national mood as
Bob Dylan had had in 1965 now seemed to be a man without a country. Instead,
Walking Man, which began with
Taylor asking, "Who is this walking man?" and ended with him commenting, "It's really not so bad to be fading away," sounded like the statement of a songwriter who either had nothing to say or didn't know how to say it. ~ William Ruhlmann